would you rather live in derby or nottingham?

I finished the Nottingham grad entry course (GEM) in July last year, now working in Sheffield area. Course is 18months pre clinical in Derby, then joining the Nottigham clinical for the last 2 1/2 years. Most of the social stuff in the first year or so was Derby based for the GEM lot, it was all very good but could be slightly cliquey, depending on how much time you wanted to spend with 90 people!

60-70% lived in halls in Derby for 1st year, the rest either privately rented or commuted from Nottigham, trains are very good, some rode, driving a bit of a bind with the a52. After the preclinical a lot of people ended up in Nottingham, but much toing and froing as years went by.

Good course, seemed to be well taught and we all did reasonably well compared with the undergrads on the traditional preclinical section, integration went pretty well - not any real segregation after.

Biking was definitely better when I was living in Derby, some local reasonable stuff and you could get the train to Matlock or drive to the Peak quickly.

Nottingham less so, but as pointed out above advantages of a more formal mtb club etc and a more varied social life and range of people. Derby has been spruced up a lot, I think I preferred it to Nottingham from living/studying in both.

Lots of good advice here cheers, def a couple of folk ill be emailing in a couple of days.

Andrew ill give you a shout about the course if that's ok, be great to hear from someone who's been through. I'll be renting as Im moving with my gf.

reckon we're going to end up staying in derby at least for the 1st year and then possibly move over to Nottingham, Ive got mates who arent medics and ill try and make sure i have a group of mates outwith my uni band. lots of good info and opinions here guys, cheers and ill fire some emails when i get a chance. might be over in derby so might try and say hello to a few of you.

nottingham all the way. i live in nottingham and work in Derby, that should say it all really. I would try to find somewhere on the west of the city (Beeston/Chilwell/Toton/Wollaton) and you wont go far wrong.

by the sounds of your post id assumed you were a undergrad medic dr death? emailed you anyway.

dr adams, if its any use i applied to newcastle, southampton and st georges. all grad programmes. did interviews at all except south. (who dont interview) and sat gamsat to get an interview for nott and st g. if thats any help, drop me a line.

You could do what we did and get in the middle - some nice villages around Ilkeston.

Commuting from Nottingham to Derby will be a pain, btw - the medical school is the opposite side of Derby to Nottingham. Are you going to spend more of your time studying or clubbing? Better to commute a long way every day to study, or commute once a week to go out on the razz?

Or it could be that the London-centric media jumped on a few shootings that happened in a small period of time and used their magical powers in an attempt to fool the guliable into thinking somewhere outside of the festering anal sore that is London is just as bad in order to divert negative attention away from said anal sore (said by an ex-Londoner)?

The 'Shottingham' tag is massively over-played. As I said before, I live a sort walk from one of the 'dodgy' areas of Nottingham yet my car and home contents insurance fell dramatically after moving up here from a leafy rural village in Hampshire.

Someone already touched on the main driver behind the bad press (the Gunn family), more specifically Colin Gunn who ordered the parents of an informant to be killed outside their home, miles away in Lincolnshire (at Trusthorpe near Mablethorpe, oddly not also considered a terrifyingly violent place even with a double killing in the area). Colin Gunn is in prison and the rest just keep their heads down.

yeah looks like derby is going to win out on logistics alone. more local riding is a definite bonus plus we just had a look at flat rent prices, wayyyy! much cheaper than madrid [:)]

I wouldn't rent a flat unless you really love apartments for their own sake - if it's anything like Nottingham, 2 or 3 bed houses just a bit outside the centre are cheaper than flats in the centre, and buses / biking / walking into town is easy enough. Plus a lot of the modern flats are in ghost-town type blocks with only a few people living in them, the rest being failed buy to lets.

ok thats good to know joe, only stayed in flats since ive left home (well and a monastery) and dont mind pedalling into town. def need a proper recce of the place. any ideas which areas to start looking?

This thread was resurrected by someone else but I appreciate the replies, ta muchly

And doing the Nottingham course isn't anymore of a ballache than other places really, def not as much as say London. We're in Derby for first 18 months then based in Nottingham for clinical work but as you mention Dunc placements means it doesn't always matter where you live.

If anyone Derby/Nottingham/around here based fancies a pedal let me know, end of my 'holidays' now but finish 1st year at end of June.